In the living room, where the fierce fire blazed, nurous charred bodies were hidden, their limbs contorted like spiders.
Dr. Schneider's Arcane Technique, "Heartlight Shield," developed from the Core Spirit Rune of "Light of the Mind," worked in conjunction with Shard's Moonlight Greatsword. The two of them walked side by side, constantly on guard for monsters that might suddenly leap out from the sea of flas. Indeed, their strength was not strong; almost any touch from the Moonlight Greatsword turned them instantly into ash.
"Detective, have you noticed? The sowhat recognizable faces of those bodies and the differing clothes on fire signify that they're not randomly assembled. This suggests that these bodies are very likely ones the Dream Master had once seen in a real fire,"
Dr. Schneider cautioned and asked Shard:
"Do you rember how many monsters we've encountered so far?"
By then, the two had reached the staircase on the first floor, and Shard, holding the sword in his right hand, recalled amidst the flas:
"17."
"It seems there was indeed sothing problematic about the fire three years ago."
The limbs of the corpses were contorted only on the first floor. Ascending the fully ablaze staircase brought about new Dream realm monsters.
Every step they took might cause transparent hands wrapped in bandages to suddenly stretch out from the walls, trying to push them downstairs. But the strength of these hands was also weak and were easily severed by the Moonlight Slash.
"The appearance of such monsters indicates that the Dream Master saw soone being pushed down the stairs during that fire. And the fact that only a pair of hands, not a complete figure, erged as monsters, it's very likely those hands belonged to Luther Kinwis himself,"
Dr. Schneider continued analyzing—his experience in intruding into many people's dreams enabled him to adeptly deduce the Dream Master's thoughts from anomalies manifested in dreams.
"So, is Luther Kinwis really the firestarter and murderer?"
Shard asked curiously.
"Detective, if you're really curious, we might ask him in a mont."
The passage from the stairs to the second-floor corridor was blocked by collapsed slabs, but there was no need for Shard and Dr. Schneider to enter from there, so they continued climbing towards the third floor.
However, a new obstruction stood on the second-floor stair landing.
This ti, the monster was humanoid, headless, clad in a black coat, with eight pairs of hands growing from its sides, each hand holding a different object: a dinner knife, a handgun, a glass bottle filled with powder, a handkerchief, a rope, a tal knitting needle, while the last two hands were empty but dripped with red liquid that resembled blood.
"A typical murderer profile, headless signifies that the Dream Master is unwilling to reveal the murderer's face here,"
Dr. Schneider stood on the burning stairs and continued analyzing:
"If the murderer is not the Dream Master, fear wouldn't lead to forgetting but would result in an even more bizarre appearance. Of course, just by inference, it's not enough; we really need to go ask what happened before that fire."
Shard nodded, noticing that although the flas grew more ferocious on higher floors, the surrounding light was diminishing. The towering flas crowded around, yet their glow grew fainter.
"I'll take care of it."
Shard said as he stepped forward, bypassing Dr. Schneider standing on the stairs.
With a forward swing of his right hand, a curved Light Blade flew upwards, the headless black-clothed monster swung the dinner knife, its hand completely severed as it dispelled Shard's Moonlight at the sa ti.
"Still not strong."
Shard thought to himself, drawing the Moonlight Greatsword with his right hand and then leaping upwards. He vanished into thin air, then appeared above the black-clothed monster.
He swung his sword downward with one hand as he jumped, thinking he could smash the monster in one stroke. Unexpectedly, a hand of the headless, eight-ard monster raised a handkerchief upwards:
Bang!
"Hmm?"
The black viscous substance quickly covered the handkerchief, which astonishingly expanded and hardened like a shield, blocking Shard's sword. Silvermoon's Light Particles scattered, cracks ford on the surface of the black handkerchief, but they quickly returned to normal.
"After all, it's a monster related to the Dream Master himself, so so special abilities are quite normal,"
Dr. Schneider's voice ca from behind, Shard nodded, pressed his sword against the opponent's handkerchief shield, and after landing on both feet, braced himself on his right foot and twisted his waist, his left leg kicking forward, kicking open the handkerchief shield. His right hand swung the sword again, and as the arc of Moonlight fell, a slanted silver line appeared on the body of the monster, which then also dispersed into black ashes, blending with the black filants in the air.
"Hmm?"
Shard frowned again in the sea of flas.
"What is it?"
Dr. Schneider caught up as well, and both saw the handkerchief shield, stained deep by the black viscous fluid, not disappearing imdiately.
The thick viscous fluid gradually withdrew from the handkerchief, which then turned to black ash in the fire. However, the viscous fluid itself did not disappear but slowly seeped into the floor.
"What?"
A strong sense of familiarity made Shard hurriedly quicken his steps:
"Silvermoon!"
He stretched out his finger, and light bead from his fingertips, vaporizing those black objects within the light.
"Doctor, are these things also found in dreams?"
After doing this, Shard turned his head to look at his companion, asking uncertainly as he suspected they were rely encountering similar entities, not what he had initially thought.
The blue-eyed doctor pursed his lips and looked up, saying:
"They're just entities ford from negative emotions, I see them often, don't worry about it."
But then he added:
"However, it looks like there might be so dangers ahead. I'll take the lead from here."
With that, he headed first towards the stairs to the third floor.
Shard looked at the fiery floor and cast a doubtful glance at Dr. Schneider's back, his eyebrows deeply furrowed:
"Entities of negative emotions?"
Looking up:
"Is it an illusion? No, it's better to be cautious. I must be prepared."
With that in mind, he quickly followed Dr. Schneider. However, before confirming his suspicion, Shard decided not to discuss Ivan Daknis with the doctor.
He aid to avoid any encounter between Dr. Schneider and the demon as much as possible.
The light in the stairwell to the third floor was dimr, but the flas were fiercer. These contrasting scenes made the third floor feel even more eerie.
On the stairs connecting the second and third floors, new monsters appeared. This ti, no longer were there hands pushing downward, but instead, it was a bundle of flying Gold Pounds with wings.
The monsters were darker than real banknotes, and their attacks consisted of shooting fiery banknotes, which could deeply embed themselves into the fiery walls.
Dr. Schneider, leading the way, summoned a transparent shield with Arcane Technique to block the attacks. Shard, following behind, countered the nimble creatures with Moonlight Slash.
"Detective, the common knowledge is, the closer you get to the Dream Master, the more the guards of the dream resemble the subconscious of the host. Thus, the truth behind this fire might indeed be due to these banknotes,"
Dr. Schneider had ti to explain the current phenona to Shard as they advanced, perhaps thinking this nightmare exploration was not the most dangerous.
However, the dimly burning flas were already causing a painful sensation of burns on their skin. Although the flying banknotes were easy to deal with, just like the headless, eight-ard monsters before, they left behind traces resembling the Demon Person's Pus upon death.
Even though Shard was maintaining the Moonlight, he could not stop those traces from slipping through cracks in the stairs and walls caused by the fire, falling towards lower floors. Fortunately, the amount of the black pus was minimal and seed to deliberately avoid them, not attempting to contaminate them, thus causing no imdiate trouble:
"So similar in appearance, yet non-aggressive. Could it really be a coincidence?"
After they had defeated the last wave of Gold Pound monsters erging from the flas and reached the third floor, dark, untouchable filants filled the air like dense, drifting snowflakes. At the sa ti, the fire's glow was completely weaker than the silver moonlight at Shard's fingertips, suggesting that if he didn't maintain the moonlight, the visibility on the third floor would be much lower than normal.
Shard and Dr. Schneider were prepared to encounter stronger enemies on the third floor, but upon arrival, they found no dream guardians, although it was on fire just like the lower floors.
However, the structural integrity of the third floor was the worst of all, with fallen furniture, cracked floors, and a collapsed ceiling blocking the hallway, almost entirely preventing their advance.
Shard could only use the Moonlight Greatsword to clear the way ahead, following Dr. Schneider's lead to the second room on the left-hand side of the third floor. Only the door of this room had not been completely blocked off by the collapsed ceiling.
"Accounting Office?"
The doorplate was half-burned but could still hint at the complete word. The burning door was tightly shut, and the black components within the fire almost completely overwheld the bright yellow.
"Detective, the target is inside. We need to find the image of Luther Kinwis in the dream, capture him and perform the ceremony, then we can extract the Mind Crystal,"
Dr. Schneider said, his voice sowhat subdued amidst the crackling fires. He grasped the doorknob, which unsurprisingly was locked, but this ti he didn't let Shard co forward to open it, instead whispering toward the inside:
"We've brought more Gold Pounds."
A snap, almost drowned out by the blaze, indicated the door had been unlocked from the inside.
"You see, this is the right way to get through a locked door in a dream."
Dr. Schneider turned to Shard, signaling him to get ready before pushing the door open and entering; Shard followed right behind.
As soon as both had fully entered the room, a loud rumbling sound suddenly ca from behind.
Shard and Dr. Schneider quickly turned around to see the ceiling of the hallway outside the door collapsing in flas, raising dust and a wave of heat, completely blocking the path outside the door.
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